text: Various manufactured therapeutic monoclonal antibody drugs, e.g. pembrolizumab, atezolizumab, durvalumab nivolumab, and avelumab, bind to and inhibit the stimulation of PD-1 on CD8+ T cells by PD-L1. In effect, they block the ability of CMTMT6 to suppress PDL1/PD-1-stimulated CD8+ T-cell immune responses against tumor cells. One or more of these drugs are approved by the FDA for treating (as a single agent or in combination with adjuvant radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy) various cancers including certain types of Hodgkin's disease, melanomas, Merkel-cell carcinomas, cancers associated with microsatellite instability (e.g. certain types of colon, stomach, endometrial, ovarian, hepatobiliary tract, urinary tract, brain, and skin cancers), non-small cell lung cancer, head and neck cancers, esophageal cancers, bladder cancers, urinary track cancers, renal cell cancers, hepatocellular carcinomas, triple-negative breast cancers, undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcomas, and some forms of soft tissue sarcomas that have  metastasized. A phase II study of 56 patients with cancer of unknown primary origin, i.e. a very common (2% to 5% of all diagnosed cancers) and difficult to treat metastatic cancer in which the primary cancer is unknown) found that nivolumab had a small (overall complete plus partial response rate of ~20%) beneficial effect. However, the use of any of these monoclonal antibody drugs as a single immunotherapy agent often benefits only a small percentage of cases with a particular disease, often lasts for only a short time, and may cause sever side-effects. Consequently, alternate methods of using these anti-PD-1 antibodies are being studied. Current preclinical studies and clinical trials are testing combinations of two anti-PD-1 antibodies or one anti-PD-1 antibody combined with an antibody that binds to and inhibits other immune response-regulating proteins, e.g. the CTLA4 protein (i.e. cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4), for their therapeutic effects in the just cited and other cancer types.